


Small Weapons

by CyPanache



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyPanache/pseuds/CyPanache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The thing about the curse is it takes things from you. Things that make you who you were, and you never even know you've lost them, can barely feel the space where they should be. But Gold remembers, and she is not Belle.</i>
</p>
<p>Sometimes you can't go back . . . just forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I've been captivated by this couple since the moment I saw 'Skin Deep'. The possibilities are enormous and they hit an insane number of my pairing buttons as a writer. More than anything I've been captivated by the idea that when Gold finally does meet 'his' Belle, it might be just as difficult for him to learn to love the woman she is now as it is for Belle to fall in love with him. That's the story I've set out to tell here. With plot thrown in as a bonus.

* * *

_I like small weapons, you see-the needle; the pen; the fine point of a deal-subtlety. Not your style, I know.  
– _ Mr. Gold (Rumplestiltskin) "Desperate Souls" 1x08

**Prologue**

The cracks are beginning to show. Regina can see them shimmering just under the surface, feel them spiderweb beneath her fingers as little by little her previously iron control fragments, and pieces start to slip away.

And she knows who's responsible.

It's not Emma, despite what Henry says, the assertions her son makes in the too-loud stage-whisper of children whenever he thinks she can't hear. Even if the self-righteous blonde is this 'savior' Henry keeps rambling about, ( _What a ludicrous title, as if any of them would truly be saved by going back._ ) it won't be because of anything she does on her own.

No, she's a pawn. A tool. An uncharacteristically blunt one for this particular craftsman, perhaps, but that doesn't stop Regina from recognizing Gold's handiwork. From seeing the thread he began to spin ages ago running through recent events, the way he's woven himself into the story ever-so carefully. Regina's traced the pattern, run through it over and over-Emma to Henry to Gold. Emma to Henry to Gold.

A slender thread perhaps, but there all the same.

It all comes back to Gold. Always Gold.

After the sheriff's race the suspicion becomes a record scratch, a needle stuck in a groove, until she can't stand it, until she absolutely has to _know_.

And now she does.

For nothing more than a piece of chipped china.

Certainly not one of Rumple's better bargains, but then there had always been something about that girl that unbalanced him, tipped the scales.

Good to know some things haven't changed.

Now that they've put their cards on the table, Regina knows it's only a matter of time. Their uneasy detente started disintegrating the moment Emma stepped foot into Storybrooke, devolving into guerrilla attacks and border skirmishes. A full-scale battle isn't far off. In a way Regina almost looks forward to it, if for no other reason than to watch the newly-minted sheriff squirm. It's been a small private amusement of hers, how oblivious Emma seems to be to the infamous deal-maker's hold. Perhaps she feels a few of the strings - a bargain struck, a favor owed. ( _Regina can only guess how deeply Gold's managed to put her in debt_ ) But it's obvious from her demeanor, her careless contempt, that she still believes the thread can be snapped if she doesn't like the price.

Won't realize how completely she's been caught until Rumplestiltskin flicks his hand and makes her dance.

But Regina knows.

After all, theirs has been a very _long_ war. One spanning decades and worlds. She's had a great deal of time to study her opponent. For the past twenty eight years she's done little else ( _in Storybrooke there's almost nothing else to do_ ), and there's something she's discovered, something it took coming to this awful, boring little town and watching Gold operate without his magic, watching him still manage to slide in and out of people's lives for little more than his own entertainment to see. But see it she has.

And it's going to make all the difference.

For what she's discovered is this:

Gold plays by his own rules perhaps. But at the end of the day he still plays by _rules_.

Regina on the other hand . . . cheats.

Blatantly. Boldly.

So as Gold starts to finally move his pieces into checkmate slowly inexorably close in on her with the cool unhurried confidence of someone who thinks he's winning, Regina knows what her next move must be.

She upsets the board.

* * *

The business with Katherine is what finally decides her. Things are progressing too rapidly, too quickly. It's not the woman's insistence that she's going to leave Storybrooke which gets Regina's attention ( _The town will take care of that bit of nonsense on it's own. However much she hates Rumplestiltskin, she has no doubt that the wretched little imp's curse contains no loopholes he didn't intend. She highly doubts spoilt, insipid Abigail was ever interesting enough to catch his attention, let alone earn herself special consideration_ ).

No, it's the letter. Giving her husband and his lover her _blessing_? Granting them unearned happiness out of what? The goodness of her heart? Please.

It's simply too pathetically pat, too horrendously easy . . . like something out of a fairytale.

The idea scrapes at Regina's skin, crawls its way through her blood. And she swears she can hear Rumplestiltskin laughing.

Later, she will think she did it just to shut him up.

"Release her."

If the nurse is surprised by the command, by her employer's sudden change of heart after twenty-eight years, she doesn't show it. Doesn't ask for confirmation or explanation. But Regina wouldn't have expected her to.

Such trivialities are unnecessary between them. The nurse will do exactly as she's told. She always has, ever since the day long ago and faraway, when an evil queen took her heart.

So by tomorrow Rumple's girl ( _whatever her name is. Regina can never be bothered to remember_ ) will be free.

The girl will be free, the basement will be converted to storage, and the nurse will be dead.

And then things will get interesting.

Because you see, Regina may not be one for subtlety, but she's not lacking in patience. Oh no. Any gardener must have that in spades. The careful, time-consuming process of planting a seed and waiting for it to sprout, to flower.

Regina's always been an excellent gardener.

And she's nurtured this particular seed for years.

Time to watch it bear fruit.

* * *

It's Emma who finds her, of course.

And someday when Emma has started to _believe_ she will recognize the way she seems to stumble into the middle of every major Storybrooke event as part of a larger pattern, a deeper truth.

But today is not that day.

So today it's just that she's a one woman police department in a town with too little crime and too many busy-bodies. So when strange, barefoot girls are spotted sitting on the ledge of the clock tower . . . well, guess who gets the call.

Really, she thinks with a sigh as she starts to climb the steps, quaint is so incredibly overrated. If it wasn't for Henry . . .

It's only after she gets up there, that Emma realizes she has no idea what she's going to say. ( _Crisis counseling, not exactly a big emphasis in her previous life._ )

"So hey, don't suppose you want to come down from there?" she ventures, and immediately cringes in regret because that's got to be the last thing you say to a suicide case. Okay, yeah, she should probably work on this part of her skill set.

But the girl doesn't seem to find anything strange or unsympathetic about the request. Just shakes her head vehemently. "Not yet," she mutters, "Haven't seen it all. Not yet. This is west and I've seen east. Watched the sun rise. In the east, I mean. Not the west. It still rises in the east, just like I remembered. Got that part right. But I still need to do north and south. Need to check."

And maybe months of humoring Henry, of playing into the fantasy have taught her a thing or two, because rather than simply slapping a set of cuffs on the girl and hauling her back from the edge, Emma finds herself asking, "Check what?"

"The world."

The words are breathed more than said, an exhale of something almost like wonderment, as if this girl has never seen anything quite so beautiful before.

And okay yeah, maybe Emma's not exactly up on 'Suicide-Prevention-101,' but she'd bet her life that no jumper sounds like that.

Like the whole world's opened up to them, like they've just been presented with a banquet of possibility and are so giddy at the prospect they can't decide where to start.

That's when it hits her - whatever this is . . . it isn't an ending, but a beginning.

Somehow she's wandered into the start of the story.

A story that's starts with a beautiful damsel in a tower . . .

Oh, Henry's gonna have a field day with this one.

* * *

Sure enough within ten minutes of meeting Storybrooke's newest mystery, Henry's asking, "Who do you think she is?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out, kid," Emma murmurs distractedly as she types the young woman's description into the missing person's database.

"Really?" he pops up from the chair to come around and peer at the computer screen, face falling when he sees the Maine State seal in the corner. "Oh, you mean here."

"Where else-" she catches herself just in time to keep from completing the thought. Pushing away from the desk, Emma turns her chair to face Henry and leans forward in the posture of a co-conspirator. Dropping her voice a little, she says, "Hey look, I thought it would be a good idea to know as much as possible about who she is here. After all, isn't that how you figured out Archie and Mary Margaret and everyone else?"

Henry's eyes narrow in a way that says he's not really buying it, against her will Emma feels a small thrill of pride. Whatever else is going on in the kid's head, he has inherited her nose for bullshit.

"Okay, how about this. Have you ever heard of a parallel investigation?"

"No."

"It's something police do sometimes, when two teams work the same case from two different angles, so nothing gets missed. That's what we should do here. You go out there and talk to her. I think she likes you. So go learn everything you can to work it from your end, and I will work it from mine."

"Are you just making this parallel stuff up?"

"No way, cross my heart. In fact-" Reaching into her desk-drawer she pulls out the deputy's badge and drops it in his palm. Her fingers hesitate briefly at the memory of Graham once doing something very similar, but she shakes herself out of it and forces a smile, "There. Now you're official."

Henry closes his tiny hand around the badge with reverent disbelief. "Really?"

"Really." Emma nods, swallowing back the sudden swell of emotion that sometimes threatens to overwhelm her at the sight of Henry's joy, and tries to give him a stern look. "Just remember to report back to me whatever you find out. A deputy always reports back."

"Don't worry. You can count on me," he throws over his shoulder, already halfway out the door of the office.

"I know I can, kid."

Suddenly he skids stop and turns on his heel, coming back over to grab the book. "Almost forgot-"

"Maybe you better it leave here. I'm not sure she ready for that quite yet."

He pauses as if considering the question then nods in agreement. "Yeah, you're probably right. Hey, you said she was up in the clock tower . . . do you think she's Rapunzel?"

"I don't know . . ." Emma hedges. She doesn't know the woman's story yet ( _and she is a woman, not a girl as Emma once thought_ ), but somehow she thinks the last thing her mysterious new charge needs is to be told she's a fairytale character made legendary for her status as a hostage. "Wasn't Rapunzel a blonde?"

Henry just shrugs, unperturbed by this minor detail. "Yeah, but Dr. Hopper's supposed to be a cricket."

Emma doesn't really have an answer to that.

* * *

Two hours later Emma is ready to throw in the towel. It's not that there are no missing person's reports matching the woman's description ( _slender brunette, washed-out blue eyes, parchment pale skin_ ). It's that there's too many, and none of them are from Storybrooke. She knows that detail shouldn't matter, but it does. After all with the exception of Booth and herself no one come to Storybrooke. For some reason the idea that there's now a third newcomer seems more improbable than the idea she's a famous fairytale princes who materialized out of thin air.

Oh, dear god, Henry is rubbing off on her.

Emma groans. She cannot be running a police investigation based on the operating principles of a ten year old's delusions.

And yet . . .

Scrubbing a hand over her face, she leans back and tries to watch Henry surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, making sure to do her best not to be too obvious about it. It turns out the girl, woman, princess, whoever she is ( _Dammit she's got to find something to call her_ ) is far more comfortable with heights than she is with people.

She's a strangely skittish thing for someone who thought nothing of dangling her feet over a ledge seven stories up. When Emma had finally gotten her off the tower onto the ground, the crowd had almost been too much for her. Even Henry, who has to be the least threatening thing in Storybrooke seemed to overwhelm her at first.

Not that you'd know it now . . . Emma watches them sitting over on the couch heads bent together as Henry prattles on about something with the intent seriousness of children. Maybe if she can get Henry to come with her, she'll manage to convince her new found charge to come back with her to Mary Margaret's tonight. Maybe not precisely legitimate, but Emma's still too leery of the system not to skirt it whenever she can.

So yes, maybe there are a few things here or there that ping something in the back of her mind, that make her wonder if the woman's all there ( _not the least of which is she still can't get her to give her name_ ), but it's nothing she can't ignore for the sake of making sure people who really care are looking after Storybrooke's latest possible princess.

Logging off the computer, she gathers up her things and starts to make her way out of the office.

"All right, so I was thinking-"

She's cut off by the tap of Gold's cane on the floor tiles. "Sheriff, I wonder if I might have a moment of your time-"

He never gets the chance to tell her what he needs her time for though because at that instant three things happen all at once:

Gold rounds the doorway into the station.

Emma's mystery woman looks up.

And all hell breaks loose.

 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rumplestiltskin gets distracted, Belle makes her own bargain, and Mr. Gold is reminded that all magic has a price . . .

_**Once . . .** _

The first time Rumplestiltskin sees her, Belle is covered in blood and laughing.

This part of the story doesn't get written down of course, it's his alone to keep, but that doesn't make it any less true.

It certainly doesn't make it any less important.

In fact, when you get to the end you might just decide it's the most important part of the whole tale, the detail that changes everything - a single small laugh in the midst of a war zone.

She is making her way through the wounded, her pale skin smeared with dirt, the front of her white apron splashed red with some poor sot's blood, and she would be a terrifying sight were it not for the smile, the gentle surety of her hands as she works on wrapping a young soldier's injuries. As it is she's simply one among many to be avoided as he weaves through the moaning bodies pleading for assistance. Beautiful perhaps, but in a land rife with rare beauties, the market is fairly saturated and he has little use for yet another.

All in all, not particularly interesting.

He is there because . . . well really, that should be obvious. Battlefields do tend to be ripe for the picking, and there's a popinjay of a knight who's just been terribly scarred and is convinced his life is absolutely over . . .

But that's a story which will never be told.

Because at that moment Belle laughs. In the midst of death and pain and agony, against an angry red sky with smoke filled lungs, she laughs. Fingers soaked in a soldier's blood as she digs out an arrowhead, she tells ribald stories and makes dark jokes. She finds a small kernel of joy and holds it up for the rest of the world to see like a talisman, like a weapon. ' _Look at me. I am not afraid. I am not yet beaten._ ' She laughs and the poor lad who will never run again manages to laugh with her.

And Rumplestiltskin can feel a shift in the currents, a change in the mood. The air, which had been thick with desperation, thins out a little. His pickings slimmed by a half-dozen, no more, but still . . . suddenly she is something far more rare that beautiful.

She is _fascinating._

So really this is how the story starts.

Belle laughs

And Rumplestiltskin lets himself get distracted.

And the world turns on a dime . . .

* * *

Belle has always been cursed with an inappropriate sense of humor.

Unique, her father calls it. Unladylike, her old nursemaid tutted. Odd, townspeople whisper behind her back. ( _Gaston doesn't notice her enough to comment on it at all._ )

But what everyone really means is _black_. _Macabre_.

She's been this way for longer than she can remember. It's a legend in the surrounding villages, a story exchanged in hushed voices when tavern patrons are in their cups.

 _"The Magistrate's daughter. You know the one I mean. Beautiful thing, but strange eyes. Well, she's not quite right that one. Cursed probably. No it's true, I have an aunt (sister, friend . . .) who was the midwife (serving-maid, kitchen staff . . .) at the great hall the day she was born. And they say that she didn't make a sound for days, didn't even cry and everyone was certain she would not live a fortnight. But then her mother, who had nearly died herself in childbirth, regained her strength and insisted the child be brought to her so she could be held. That night my aunt (sister, friend . . .) was passing by the room and she heard the sweetest sound, so she peaked in . . . Well there was the mistress dead in her bed. Like that for hours she must have been, her body stiff and long gone cold. But that little Belle was still held fast in her arms, and wouldn't you know, the baby was_ _laughing_ _._ "

Belle has no idea if any of the story is true ( _her father insists it's hogwash, but sometimes he looks at her, and she's not so sure)._ But that part hardly matters. Tell a lie enough times and it stops being a lie at all. It becomes a myth, a legend.

It doesn't help that her father's fortunes have been deteriorating since the day Belle was born. There are always perfectly logical explanation for each failing, every stumble - her mother was the better steward of the lands, her father has no head for figures and even less for trickery, there's a drought one year, and a blight another - but that doesn't keep the legend from growing.

And in this land legends matter, have a way of becoming something stronger than truth.

So she grows up marked. _The girl who laughed as death held her._

She doesn't really mind. At least that's what she tells herself, trying to build her indifference into the legend and make it real. If nothing else, she figures it will lower the pressure to marry some young man she's never met. After all no father wants to tie his son and his lands to a cursed girl with no dowry, no matter how lovely she might be.

On her twentieth naming-day the ogres break a truce that has held for decades, attacking one of the outlying villages and the Second Ogre War begins.

And that, Belle figures, pretty much takes care of that.

For the next five years she settles into spinsterhood with a resolute good cheer that only makes the whispers fly faster. Takes to her duties as her father's only heir with a sure hand and a quick mind - attending the war councils, handling accounts to pay the fighting men, organizing the harvests and managing the stores. And she knows what she does is valuable, important, but she stands on the edge of the battlements month after month watching too-young farm boys lay down pitch-forks and take up the pikes, and month after month she stands in the doorways of hovels with a meager basket of provisions and hollow words of sympathy watching families grieve, and she can't help but feel utterly useless.

Can't help but wish she could do more.

Now you might think we've reached the part of the story where the heroine shears off her locks, wraps her chest, and takes up the sword herself. But Belle is a particularly peculiar kind of heroine, even as particularly peculiar heroines go. More pragmatic than romantic.

Her father does not need one more fighter ( _certainly not a slip of a woman with no training_ ). He needs a hundred, a thousand. He does not need to lose his only daughter with no explanation. He needs to gain a son and an army.

Her people need a savior.

So Belle picks up the one weapon at her disposal which she already knows how to wield with a sure, deft hand, dips her quill in the ink and begins to write. Writes to lords with too many sons and famous knights with no titles, forges her father's signature and offers herself up in trade.

And maybe readers will find this part distasteful, but Belle spent the morning elbow deep in a fifteen year old boy's blood as the barber-surgeon cut off his leg, singing him bawdy tavern songs in an effort to distract him until he passed out from the pain. She has held weeping fathers and been attacked by inconsolable mothers. She has ordered the bodies stacked in mass graves for they have no time for proper funeral rights.

Who is she to remain untouched by this war? To hold her body inviolate to the carnage?

No. Her beauty, her words, and her title are her best weapons, however small. She will not hesitate to use them.

It is Gaston who answers the call. Gaston, a legendary fighter - the seventh son of a minor lord, who has already made a name for himself in battle and now seeks a title to pass to his sons. He arrives with two score knights and another hundred good pike men. And when he courts her it is not with poetry and jewels, but war stories and blacksmiths.

Unromantic perhaps, but theirs is not a romance and neither is inclined to pretend otherwise.

To Gaston, Belle is a prize, a spoil of war. A trophy to be displayed once the blood-price is paid.

To Belle, Gaston is a weapon, a great-sword she can wield on behalf of her people. And if he needs to be sheathed at the end of the battle? Well, she has enough respect for her tools to understand the necessary chore of proper care.

Besides she has seen the way Gaston's hand lingers on his squire's shoulder, overheard enough ribald jokes between her father's guards, to think her side of the bargain will not be overly-steep.

And it's not as though 'the girl who laughed' is about to get a better offer.

* * *

 

_**Now . . .** _

The first time Gold sees her, Belle is barefoot and screaming.

He finds himself sharing the sentiment.

The sight of her. Here and alive and so close he could touch her, when for thirty years he has believed her dead, believed her dust. It's enough to level him.

But there are appearances to be kept, and a man who turns tail and runs at the mere sight of a terrified young woman . . . Well, that's hardly going to strike fear in the hearts of anyone.

So he stays frozen in the doorway, and makes do with tightening his grip on his cane until it's painful, thankful the gloves he's wearing mask the whitening of his knuckles. If he betrays himself beyond that Emma doesn't seem to notice.

Probably because the woman wearing Belle's face is still screaming and doesn't seem inclined to stop anytime soon.

It takes him a moment to realize _he_ is what she's screaming at, and when he does his eyes flick closed in pain. It does nothing to stop the sound, but it's easier to take somehow if he can't see that it's her that it's coming from.

Belle. Striking, magnificent, brave Belle. Belle who laughed on a battlefield and sold herself without hesitation to save her people. Belle who slept in a dungeon without crying and flirted with a monster without flinching.

Belle reduced to this. This screaming, petrified creature before him.

It is a particularly cruel trick. But then it should be. It's _his_ trick.

For this is exactly how the curse works. It takes things from you, critical pieces that make who you were. And the best part, the sharpest cut, the most sublime twist? You never even know you've lost them, can barely feel the space where they should be.

So you're a completely different person, a pale shadow of who you ought to be.

Snow White without her fighting spirit becomes nothing more than sweet, unassuming Mary Margaret patiently waiting for life to happen to her.

Charming bereft of his stalwart, steadfast heart, reduced to buying valentines for two women.

Even the cricket's unfailing moral compass gets a little skewed for awhile.

And Gold had found it all highly entertaining, a fascinating tableaux to watch them stumble through life a little bit broken, and unable to put their finger on how.

He's no longer quite so amused . . .

Of course, _of course_ , it would take Belle's courage.

All magic comes with a price after all. This, he thinks, is his.

Later that night when Gold goes back to his house, he will pour three fingers of scotch into a teacup, drain it, and laugh at the irony. He will laugh uncontrollably, madly, hysterically. Laugh until it sounds like a sob, like a scream, like a wounded animal. Laughs until it transforms into something inhuman and terrifying, something only one other person in this town would ever recognize.

But for now, he forces his hand to uncurl from the head of his cane and ventures in his best unaffected tone, "You seem to have your hands full. Perhaps it would be better if I came back?"

He has to strain to be heard over the scream and his voice sounds strange to his own ears, but Emma who is now crouched down in front of Belle doesn't even seem to hear it, just keeps murmuring something soft and low, as she strokes Belle's hair like she's trying calm a skittish animal or comfort a small child.

The sight makes him sick.

"Oh do shut up," he snarls in exasperation, unable to take it anymore.

Emma whips her head around to glare at him. "Gold!"

"Well, I'm sorry but-" "You can't just order people-"

They break off at the exact same moment as the room is plunged into sudden silence leaving their voices comically loud in its wake, and turn to stare at Belle.

Who is no longer screaming.

Shooting him one last glare, obviously blaming him for this new turn of events ( _as if it's a terrible inconvenience to_ _not_ _have a screaming woman in her station_ ), Emma moves to sit beside Belle on the couch. "You don't have to listen to him, you know. Go ahead scream if you want."

"Yes, but if you could perhaps do it a little more quietly I'm sure no one would complain," he counters with a roll of his eyes.

He says it without thinking, nothing more than his tendency towards dry observation and perpetual need to have the last word. Intends to make it a parting shot and take his leave, but then something happens.

Belle smiles.

Maybe. Maybe she smiles. It's nothing more than a small flash, a quick tug at the corner of her mouth, gone before he realizes it's there. And he knows it likely didn't happen at all, that there's every possibility he imagined it, but it's enough.

Enough to make him take an unconscious step forward into the station. Pulled by something almost beyond his control. Belle's eyes fly to his at the movement, and she tenses immediately, but she doesn't look away. And for a moment he almost thinks she is playing some strange version of brinkmanship, daring him to back down, blink first.

He takes another step forward. She fists her hands tight. But her eyes stay fixed on his.

_Is that you? Are you in there?_

Misreading moment, Emma gives him a wan, apologetic smile. "Sorry, she's a little slow to warm up to new people. It's not you really. You should have seen how she was with Henry."

"She didn't scream," Henry protests.

Emma nudges him with an elbow to shut him up.

Gold ignores them both, gaze never leaving Belle's. He's not sure he could look away if he wanted to.

"So it appears it is a little bit me," he ventures, and there's a flash of something in Belle's eyes in response. Somewhere in the background Emma is making another protest, but he waves it away with a careless hand, and continues. "Good. I would hate to think I hadn't made an impression. Trust me, my dear, you're not the first to have that instinct upon seeing me. Though you are perhaps, the most vocal?"

Belle's fingertips fly to her mouth, and for a second he thinks she might speak. Finds himself perched on a precipice of hopeful expectation, not realizing until this moment how much he has missed the sound her voice. In some ways it is the most familiar part of her, certainly far more so than the touch of her hand or the cast of her features. But her voice, well that's an old friend. A long-time companion met often from across the room, as they spent their afternoons conversing with backs to each other while he spun as she cleaned ( _a strange courtship if ever there was one_ _)_. He thinks if he loved any part of her, if his dark warped heart had truly been capable of the emotion, it must have been her voice he fell for first. He has replayed their conversations a thousand times over, wrapped them around his heart like a thread bare blanket. Oh what he would give for a few spare words with which to darn the memories.

The moment passes however and with it whatever flash of his Belle that might have been there fades as well.

"Ah," he breathes in disappointment, before forcing his features into a tight strained smile that he knows from experience looks very much like a grimace. Sure enough the woman who is not Belle at all ( _foolish of him to pretend otherwise_ ) flinches and looks down at her hands. "Well, it appears I have overstayed my welcome."

"Since when have you worried about that?"

"Come now, Sheriff, you'll ruin the young lady's obviously good opinion of me," he retorts, letting himself fall into the familiar rhythm of their repartee, taking comfort in the steady footing this well-known terrain affords him. "Now if you'll excuse me. I suddenly remembered, I have some business with our mayor which really cannot be delayed. Henry would you like me to walk you home?"

He's not quite sure what Henry sees in his eyes, but the boy swallows and shakes his head emphatically 'no'.

Smart lad.

"Well then. It seems I'll be taking my leave. Sheriff. Henry," he gives them each a short curt nod of his head, before turning his attention back to the last of the trio. "And of course the belle of our little ball."

The full bow happens naturally, without thought, and if there is perhaps a mocking edge to it? Well, it's all the humor he can muster.

Belle would have laughed, would have returned it with one of her own.

This woman just looks at him.

Gold turns on his heel.

He's almost at the door when suddenly the unexpected sound of Belle's voice pulls him up short like a choke collar.

"Name."

He freezes. He knows societal niceties dictate he turn, but he can't quite make himself. Like this with his back to her, she is familiar, and he could almost believe she will be there if he looks. But he knows she won't be, so he doesn't.

"Sorry?"

"Don't know your name. Need a name. Names are important."

His hand tightens on his cane and his eyes squeeze shut. "Yes, they certainly are," he murmurs, then takes a deep breath and forces his eyes back open, trying not to look at her reflection in the glass of the windows and failing miserably. "All you need to do is ask, my dear."

There's a long silence as she seems to consider that, and he wonders if, perhaps, she will seek to clarify the bargain. Then:

"What shall I call you?"

Ah, well that's a different question entirely, and he can't help hoping that somewhere in a long buried part of her, she knows that, modified her terms to lower his price.

"I imagine you will learn to call me a great many things. The sheriff can teach you a few very colorful ones I'm sure."

"You think I've forgotten."

His old, out-of-practice heart skips a beat. "Forgotten what?"

"The question. What shall I call you?"

Oh. That.

"Gold, you should call me Mr. Gold."

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are threats and posturing and more threats . . . in other words Regina and Gold have a little chat.

"I'm assuming this was your doing."

Regina doesn't look up from her laptop. "Mr. Gold, how nice of you to knock, and they say good manners are dead."

He _didn't_ knock of course. He never does with her, simply materializes in her doorway as quietly as if he had appeared out of thin air. Even that cane of his is somehow rendered silent when he pays her a call ( _and oh what she would give to know why he needs that_ ). But if Gold is hoping the unannounced visit will rattle her this time, well he'll just have to learn to live with disappointment. She's been waiting for him to show up for hours now. Honestly, she thought it would be sooner.

_Rumple darling, you're losing your touch._

His cane lands across her desk with a resounding crack, knocking the laptop closed and forcing her to snatch her hands back in order to avoid having them clipped.

"How long?" he grinds out, twisting the words until they're practically a snarl.

Standing, Regina takes a long deliberate moment to smooth out the wrinkles in her skirt in an effort to regain her composure, keep her poise. "Oh Mr. Gold, you're practically trembling. Would you like me to move a few things? Make some space for your rage? You know all you have to do is ask nicely."

"How. Long."

Even though this is exactly what she was going for, precisely the reaction she wanted to provoke - Rumplestiltskin stripped of his trappings and his deals and his quips. A rabid, wild dog acting not with careful calculation but raw instinct, all malice and blind fury - it doesn't make the sight any less unsettling. There is every possibility he will strike her before this confrontation is out.

Stepping to the side and out of reach, she circles around the desk, careful to give him and that cane a wide berth. Regina's been hit before. She has no intention of letting it happen again, if for no other reason than she does not bruise prettily.

Giving him her best apples and arsenic smile, she moves over to the side-board in the corner and pulls out two glasses. After all what kind of mayor would she be if she didn't offer her constituents a drink? Unstoppering a decanter, she starts to pour a small measure of brandy into each tumbler, talking over her shoulder as she does. "Now if I remember how things used to be between us, this is the point where I'm supposed to protest that I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." She spins on her heel and pins him with a challenging gaze. "But they're not how they used to be, are they Rumplestiltskin? Things. Have. Changed."

Gold blinks, and then he smiles. Not one of the quick, thin, mocking smiles he turns on the civilized world, no this smile is unhurried and broad and absolutely murderous. The monster bearing his teeth. "Oh, I wouldn't be quite so eager to put that to the test, your Majesty." As if to reinforce the point, he flicks his gaze down to the apple-brandy in her hand, then back to her. "Be a dear and add a little ice and a splash of soda to mine. _Please._ "

He adds the last word as a barbed afterthought, stretching it out and letting it linger on his tongue. It's not a big thing. He never uses it that way. Instead it's a humiliation, a reminder, a swift sharp tug on a leash designed to put an unruly pet back in its place.

Regina would have infinitely preferred it if he'd struck her. As it is she finds herself gritting her teeth and turning back to the sidebar.

Fighting not to give him the satisfaction of witnessing her irritation at his little display of power, she keeps talking, making her voice deliberately light and unbothered. "I'm assuming this unexpected visit has something to do with the sudden reappearance of that maid of yours. Now wasn't that a stroke of luck? Granted I never really understood your peculiar attachment to the girl, but you . . . well, you must be overjoyed." Turning back around, she hands him the brandy, now prepared to his specifications and clinks her own tumbler against it in a parody of a toast. "Allow me to be the first to offer my congratulations."

Gold flips his hand to pour the contents out onto the carpet without taking a sip.

"You told me she was dead."

"Yes, well . . . _that._ " Regina perches on the couch arm and takes a sip of her own brandy before continuing, "I lied, obviously."

"Lied," Gold repeats stupidly, carving the word out with his tongue like he doesn't quite understand it. Then the reality seems to sink in and his face contorts in a combination of confusion and anguish and anger that would be comical if it wasn't so incredibly pathetic. The great dark one, the voice in shadows, the dealmaker, the trickster king, rendered inert by an insignificant slip of girl. It's moments like these, watching how weak the heart can make someone as powerful as him, that she almost wants to thank Rumple for convincing her to cut out her own.

Almost . . .

"Oh don't act so injured. After all, what's a little lie between such old enemies? There used to be a time when I said the sky of the Frontlands was red, and you'd have to check it for yourself. So tell me Rumplestiltskin, did you check? Did you tear apart the world? Cut a great bloody swath through the land and rescue your fair maid from the tower? Or did you hide in your castle and lick your wounds while she suffered, while she went slowly mad?" Leaning forward she sets the tumbler down on the glass coffee table with a clink that punctuates her taunt. "Let's dispense with the moral outrage, shall we? I don't think either one of us is equipped for it."

Gold just looks at her for a long dangerous moment, face so outwardly impassive that anyone else would think he hadn't heard her, that her words hadn't made an impression.

But Regina is not anyone else.

She's his oldest enemy. His most distrusted collaborator and most hated rival. She's spent lifetimes learning him, every button to press and string to pull, and she _knows_ him. With the kind of intimacy not even lovers manage she knows him, and she sees it all – the flex of his hand on the head of his cane, the tiny twitch of muscle at the corner of his mouth, the way his eyes move across her body with sharp assessment trying to decide where to strike first. So when he does finally open his mouth, what comes out is hardly a surprise:

"I should kill you right now."

It's low and flat and dangerously calm, not an empty threat, but a sincere observation. Weighing his options, considering his choices, and Regina feels the space where her heart should be beat faster. "Now who's forgetting subtlety?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that," he murmurs, then in a tone of simple conversational curiosity adds, "Tell me do you still have an affinity for poisons?"

She doesn't answer him, but she doesn't need to. After all, he knows her too.

Gold smiles. "Ah, I thought you might, old habits and all. Show them to me, please?"

Against all sense and instinct, Regina feels herself get up and move towards one of the bookshelves. There is nothing quite so maddening or terrifying as not being in control of your own body, to watch your hands move of their own accord to reveal your secrets and being unable to stop it. Slowly, fighting it every step of the way, she trips the catch on the compartment and pulls out the tiny crystal bottles one by one.

"Lovely," he whispers, coming up beside her to lift one of the bottles up to the light, "Absolutely lovely. Each one a small work art. You always did have such talent."

Released of the compulsion now that all of her treasures have been laid out for his inspection, Regina moves to snatch the vial back, but Gold's other hand clamps down around her wrist like a vise. "Ah, ah, ah, dearie."

For a second he is the imp again, the caged creature she found in Charming's dungeons, and for the first time Regina worries that perhaps she's miscalculated. That she's playing not with the dealer but the madman. Jerking her hand out of his grasp, she takes an unsteady step back.

"Going to have me drink, Rumplestiltskin? Now how high do you think your price would be for that?"

His gaze flicks down to the vial, then back up. "I imagine it would very nearly kill me."

It would, but the dark glee his eyes tells her that wouldn't stop him.

Gold smiles when he sees the message sink in on her features, and turns away. Moving back over to take a seat in one of the arm chairs. ""Well now that we've dispensed with the pleasantries let's get down to business shall we?"

He extends a hand to the other as if inviting her to join him. In her own office. The arrogance of the man . . . But the gesture causes the vial to catch the light, and there is a fine line between pride and foolishness.

She sits back on the arm of the couch instead. "Yes. Let's."

"How long?"

Oh for the . . . are they really back to that? It's like the man's intent on gutting himself. But if that's his wish, well far be it from her to refuse to wield the knife, she leans forward savoring the cut of every word. "Exactly as long as you think."

His eyes flick closed at that, like somehow he might keep the words at bay. "Why-" But confirmation of his worst fears has rattled him more than he'd ever admit, and he can't quite get the question out. He licks his lips and tries again, "Why now- Why would you-" Then he seems to work through the answer to his own question, his gaze snaps to hers. "A distraction. She's a distraction. You devious bitch."

"Really, I don't know what I ever did to have you think so low of me. Now of course, I didn't have anything to do with this. But if I did, well has it ever occurred to you that perhaps I just wished to see my oldest acquaintance achieve some _small_ measure of happiness?"

The way his face darkens, you'd think she just threatened to slit the girl's throat. "You're going to stay away from her."

The command is so direct and ham-fisted that Regina can't help herself. She laughs. "Oh Rumple, next you'll be demanding a white-charger to ride in on. That poor girl. She really did get the raw deal, didn't she?"

Refusing to take the bait, Gold's voice turns razor-edged and poison-tipped. "Listen to me very carefully, your majesty. From this point forward she is off limits. You don't look at her, you don't talk to her. You see her on the street and you cross to the other side. She comes into a shop and you suddenly have a very pressing appointment."

"And what is it I get out of this little bargain?"

"Why I'd think that part would be obvious." He lets the poison catch the light one last time, before tucking it into the inside pocket of his suit-coat with a significance that's unmistakable. "Now, do we have a deal?"

The most delicious part is he thinks he's winning.

She does her best to appear cowed. "Well, it hardly seems like I have a choice, do I?"

"There's always a choice. The trick is to make the right one." He murmurs, then stands and starts to take his leave, pausing at the doorway to pick one of the apples from the glass bowl on the sideboard. "There is one more thing."

Regina rolls her eyes. "There always is with you."

"Our mutual friend. I made some inquiries around the town, and you know no one knows quite where she's come from. It's like she just _appeared_ out of thin air." He polishes the apple on the arm of his jacket and takes a bite before continuing. "Now Storybrooke isn't that big of a town, insular one might call it, and I pride myself on knowing what's going on. But not this time, and the thing is it takes a lot of power to keep a secret like that from me."

"Why Mr. Gold are you accusing me of something?"

"Oh Madam Mayor, I think you misunderstand me. I'm saying that whoever arranged the young woman's freedom, well I can't help but feeling there's a _debt_ between us. And you know how I feel about that. So please if you happen to know who's responsible, tell them I plan to make sure they get _exactly_ what's owed them." He takes another bite of the apple. "Do that for me will you?"

"I'd be delighted."

"Wonderful."

Later Sidney, spineless, obedient, infatuated Sidney, will tut about putting herself at risk. Ask how she could be sure Gold wouldn't kill her then and there. And Regina will run an elegant hand over his cheek and tell him she always had everything under control. And Sidney will be mollified, will think she anticipated every move, replaced her poisons with colored water or some such trickery.

But the answer is far simpler and far more dangerous . . .

She knows Rumplestiltskin won't kill her for the same reason she has never succeeded in killing him.

Neither one of them would know quite what to do with themselves without the other.

So they will fight and they will wound and they will maim each other piece by bloody piece. They will ruin lives and decimate lands for the chance to strike a single blow but they will always stop just short of absolute destruction, because if either of them ever managed it. If they ever succeeded . . . well then the game would be over.

And they'd be so very, very _bored_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mr. Gold makes Emma an offer she'd really like to refuse, and the woman we know as Belle . . . isn't.

That evening Emma stands in the doorway of her bedroom and watches the form curled up beneath one of Mary Margaret's faded quilts. The production hadn't been quite as complicated as she'd originally anticipated. Since their unfortunate encounter with Gold at the police station, her charge has undergone a subtle transformation, like the man's had been a splash of cold water waking her up and forcing her to engage with world.

Emma's not sure that's such a blessing.

After all, the world obviously hasn't been kind to this woman.

Except for the cuts on her feet from walking through town barefoot, there's no outward signs of abuse. But the neglect is another story. There's a sallowness to her skin and slight case of jaundice that says she hasn't seen sunlight in ages, a thinness to her form and dullness to her hair that speaks of malnourishment. And her mind . . .

God, she doesn't have the first clue what's going on in that woman's mind.

Emma sighs as Mary Margaret comes over to join her in the doorway. "Tell me I'm doing the right thing."

Her friend just takes a sip of her tea in response.

"Oh thanks."

"Emma," Mary Margaret reaches out to put a reassuring hand on her arm. "Emma you know I will go along with whatever you think is best. But that poor woman . . . do you have any idea what she's been through?"

That makes her groan, and she turns away from her temporary lapse in judgment to make her way back out to the kitchen. "No. That's exactly the problem. I don't have the first clue what I'm dealing with here."

Mary Margaret follows. "Well don't you think getting her medical treatment will help you figure it out?"

It would. It would also result in a competency evaluation and put her into the system so fast it would make your head spin. And Emma honestly can't decide which would be worse. She drops her head into her hands and runs her fingers through her hair. "I think- I think nothing's a substitute for having people who genuinely care look after you."

As if sensing the old pain and history that's embedded this conviction on her psyche, Mary Margaret leans over and pulls her into an awkward half hug.

"And this is worth putting your job on the line?"

That makes her laugh despondently. God her job. Sometimes she really, _really_ hates this job. She's never been particularly good at acting within the boundaries of authority, and now suddenly here she is, exactly the 'authority' she never had much use for. What's the point of having power if that power just constrains your ability to help people?

"Emma?" her friend prompts gently. "Is this really worth that?"

It's funny, but probably a minute ago the question would have snapped her out of this particular course of action, made her realize just how incredibly dumb this was. But for a moment she had let herself get lost in Henry's fantasy, pretend that the woman holding her wasn't just a friend, but her family, her blood, and the need of that, that hunger for connection so powerful it will even cling to a ten year-olds fairytale dreams, overwhelms her.

She doesn't know whether the woman in the other room has anyone else in the world, but she does now. She's not alone anymore. Emma won't let her be.

"Yeah." She nods with more conviction than she feels. "I know it sounds crazy, but yeah I think it is."

Mary Margaret, dear, sweet law-abiding Mary Margaret, takes a deep breath, shores up her courage and leaps. "Okay then. So what can I do?"

"I don't suppose you're any good at miracles?"

* * *

She doesn't get a miracle of course.

Just an all too familiar devil.

You'd really think she would have learned by now.

It's like her desperation conjures him from thin air. One moment she's realizing she's backed herself into a corner with far too limited options, the next moment he's at her doorstep with a smile and a proposition.

"What is it you want, Gold?"

"And good evening to you as well, Sheriff."

Emma just crosses her arms and lifts an eyebrow. Gold gives her wry smile in response and takes a thoughtful step back, turning to survey his surroundings before continue.

"Actually, it's about what you want. I came by to see whether I might be of any assistance with-" he gestures towards the half open door, "the latest addition to your little family. I am of course assuming you're not leaving her to rot in a jail cell. Speaking from experience, the accommodations leave something to be desired."

His audacity makes her hackles rise, but it's hard to deny his timing is flawless as usual. It's part of the reason why she doesn't trust him. He's too good at catching people at their lowest, knowing when they're at their absolute weakest. Emma steps out into the hallway, closing the apartment door behind her. "Thanks, but we've got everything under control here."

"Do you, now?" he says with mock astonishment, "Well that's quite impressive. It would have taken me at least a day to make all those arrangements. It seems I have underestimated you Sheriff. My apologies."

And with that he moves to go. No pressing the point, no forcing the issue. Perhaps that is what power looks like. The willingness to turn your back when others can't.

But then she's never had much use for power.

Dammit.

_Dammit. Dammit. Dammit!_

"Wait," Emma calls out, cringing even as she does. "What kind of arrangements?"

Gold turns and looks up at her, a small flash of triumph in his eyes. "I'm guessing it hasn't escaped your notice that the young lady may have some-" he seems to grope for a word before landing on ones he doesn't particularly like, "specialized needs."

"That's one way of putting it." What she needs is a full medical workup, a psychological eval and possibly trauma counseling, but Emma's trying not to think about that too hard right now.

"And yet here she is at home with you rather than a hospital. Now, while I have no doubt that Ms. Blanchard is a soothing presence in her own right, I don't remember her obtaining a medical license."

Emma shifts uncomfortably. "Get to the point, Gold."

"Don't worry Sheriff, I have no more desire to see the young lady swallowed up by the system than you do." He pulls out a business card and a pen and begins to scratch something on the back. "What I do have are a variety of resources at my disposal, including the numbers for some very good doctors with a very _strong_ aversion to paperwork."

"I can't pay them."

"You won't have to. Simply mention my name, and I'm certain they'll be more than eager to help out in any way they can."

He extends the card out to her.

Emma now knows how Adam felt right before taking the apple. It's so tempting, so easy - the answer to her problems on a little scrap of linen cardstock. She looks down at the two names written there in a crabbed scrawl, and can't help but wonder what their price was, how did they get themselves into his debt? Was it greed or desperation? Were they trying to help someone else or saving their own skin? Does it matter? People talk about Gold's wealth like that's what gives him the power, but it's not, it's this, the personal favors he keeps on his ledger books and trades like his own specially-minted currency.

She reaches out and takes the card, turns it over in her hands. It weighs nothing in her palm. You'd think shackles would feel heavier. "And you? What are you getting out of this?"

He smiles. It's a smile she's getting very familiar with and more than a little pissed off by. One part amusement and three parts condescension with a dash of satisfaction mixed in, like he actually enjoys having somebody call him out the way she does.

"Let's just say I have my own reasons and leave it at that."

"Let's not. Come on Gold, there is no way you're going to get me to believe that you don't want anything. I'm not giving you another favor."

"And I don't recall asking for one. Believe me Sheriff, when I want something from you in exchange for my help, I won't hesitate to name my price. Now, are you really going to deny that young woman assistance simply because of our personal differences?"

He has her, and he knows it. Still the whole situation grates. She doesn't trust him when she can see the angle, how it benefits him. But this? Offering to help some random, friendless, half-mad woman he just met—

And suddenly a fragment from what she thought was a different puzzle trips across her mind and slides into place with a click that's almost deafening.

"It's your fault."

She mutters the words half to herself, but a flicker of emotion crosses Gold's normally impassive face like a scream, and she knows she's hit on something. Pushing off the door she latches onto the idea and runs it down. "That's what you said to Moe French that night. 'It's your fault.' You said-" She wracks her brain trying to make sure she gets as close to the words as possible, "You said ' _She's_ gone. She's gone and she's not coming back and it's your fault.' You were talking about _her_ , weren't you? That's why you want to help because you _know_ her. You know who she is."

For a second just a second she thinks she's cracked him, peeled back the façade, and perhaps if she'd been smart enough to stop . . . but instead she keeps going driven forward by a sudden rush of anger that leaves her almost inarticulate. "I swear to god, if you had something to do with this- If I find out you knew anything, and didn't come to me- If that poor woman suffered for even a minute longer, I will-"

"You'll what?" Gold challenges, his eyes going flat and hard as tempered steel, whatever opening that had been there slamming shut with a clang. "I'd be very careful at this moment Ms. Swan, not to make a threat you can't keep."

Emma sees red. "You know what? Everyone else around here may jump when you say boo, but in case you've forgotten, I'm not from Storybrooke. I didn't drink the koolaid. As far as I'm concerned you're nothing more than a playground bully in a very small sandbox. And I'm not scared of you."

He doesn't move, doesn't flinch, doesn't actually _do_ anything. And yet . . . and yet for a moment she would swear his shadow goes darker and the air gets thick and the eyes holding hers flash with something not quite natural.

But then he smiles and Emma blinks and they're just two people standing in a hallway.

"Well, it seems our fair damsel has found herself quite the champion." He takes a half step back in mocking deference and turns to start down the stairs.

"Just make sure you're fighting the right dragon."

* * *

Shhh. There's a monster at the gate.

No one thinks she knows, but she does. She heard him come up the stairs. Recognized his footfalls almost immediately. The tap of his cane followed by one heavy step, one light. Tap, heavy, light. Tap, heavy, light. Absently, she drums her fingers against her thigh mimicking the rhythm of his walk as she presses her ear to the wall and listens to the voices. Can't make out the words, but she can hear the tone, the tempo, the rise and fall, and that's enough.

Enough to tell the story to herself.

'Let me in' wheedles the monster. He's disguised himself as man ( _they always do_ )—a beggar or a knight or even a prince.

But her protector is not fooled, her protector stands guard and turns the monster away. 'Go away. Go away for the princess is sleeping and does not want you here.'

Nobody knows the princess has woken up.

She can hear whispers. The monster says something soft and low and somehow she knows it's an enticement. She thinks she likes the cadence of his voice more than she should, presses her ear harder against the wall and closes her eyes wishing she could make out just one word. In her story he is casting a spell, in her story he is reaching through the walls and spinning an enchantment over her and her protector does not know.

And now their voices are rising. Angry words exchanged like swordplay. A threat, a jibe, a parry, a thrust. He hisses something sharp, voice like a dagger and her protector swings wide with the broadsword of her outrage.

Careful. Careful. She wants to cry out. Let him get too close and he'll slip his blade between your armor.

But she doesn't.

She doesn't because she knows there's no sword fight. That her 'protector' is just a woman with a leather jacket and a gun, and her monster is nothing more than a man with a cane and a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. That it's all just a story she makes up to pass the time.

She told herself thousands of them as she sat in the darkness and listened to life pass by just out of her reach. Constructs grand tragedies and delicate romances. Fantastic adventure and sweeping epics. The lumbering orderly becomes giant and the nurse who brings her pills becomes the wicked witch with a magic potion.

And in her stories she has been graceful and good. And in her stories she has been wanton and wicked. In her stories she has feuded with fairies and gotten drunk with dwarves. She has told herself a million variations. Trying on other lives like new dresses hoping to find the one that suits her best. She has been a prisoner and a savior. The enchanted and the enchantress. A hero and a villain. She has laughed and fought and loved and died. She has had a thousand names and seen a hundred worlds.

In her stories she has lived.

Sometimes though, sometimes she gets a little lost. Sometimes her story becomes reality and reality becomes the story, and things seep out and get jumbled up and won't go back to where they're supposed to be.

Sometimes she meets a man and for a split second sees a monster instead.

And sometimes she forgets it's just in her head and she screams.

They have words for what's wrong with her. Long and complicated and very official, but they all boil down to the same thing:

Crazy.

Insane.

Mad.

Not all the time or all at once. She's just a little bit crazy, occasionally insane. A part-time madwoman on Thursdays and alternate weekends. The rest of the time, _most_ of the time, she knows the difference. Knows what's real and what's not.

But even then it's always muted somehow.

She thinks it would help if she could remember her life before the darkness. But she can't. Oh she knows what happened, can tell you where she went to high school and the name of her first kiss and her street address. But there's no emotion attached. She remembers them like facts. Like words on a page. Like . . . well like a story that happened to someone else.

She saw a movie once. At least she thinks she did. But in the movie a girl lived in a world that was all shades of grey until a tornado came and took her somewhere brilliant and beautiful and full of color, and while she was there you forgot all about the other place, and even after she went back it was the grey world that felt like the unreal part.

That's what it's like, like this part- this part is the grey and it's her stories that are color. And she knows that means they're not real, but sometimes they're so vibrant she forgets anyway.

The names help.

That's why she asks. Collects them carefully one by one and uses them to tie her to this place. Ordinary names for ordinary stories - Emma and Henry and Mary Margaret.

Taking them out she whispers them to herself over and over. It's been so long since she's had names to call people, she's afraid she's forgotten how to keep them. That they won't be there tomorrow if she doesn't hold them close.

But no they come easily and she smiles at the weight of each syllable on her tongue, the shape of them in her mouth.

Emma and Henry and Mary Margaret and—

She stops. Tries again.

Emma and Henry and Mary Margaret and—

And one more . . .

But the last name doesn't come quite as easily, stays stubbornly stuck in the back of her throat. And she can taste it there, cold and metallic and dangerous. A sharp, glittering thing that might cut her ties to reality and leave her adrift.

If she closes her eyes she can still see the way he looked at her. Like he knew her. Like he expected her to be someone else.

The thought is tantalizing and terrifying in equal measure.

Through the wall she hears the tap of his cane. The monster has been vanquished and she reaches her hand down to the floorboards to feel his retreat. For a second she imagines that if she says his name out loud he will hear her. Even through the walls he will hear her, and he will come back.

But she doesn't.

She doesn't because he scares her, and she is only brave in stories.

Out here she's just Rachel.

Timid and plain and ordinary Rachel.

Just a gray little name for a gray little world.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Belle meets a stranger . . . No. Not that one.

_**Once . . .** _

Now, if anyone ever asked Belle to tell her story herself, she would not start with the Ogre Wars or her mother's death or even Rumplestiltskin's bargain.

Instead, she would start with a stranger.

No, not that one.

This one comes first. Not a dark elegant lady with a sharp, quick stride, but a gray ramshackle man with a limp.

She meets him by chance ( _or at least she will believe it to be chance for nearly half a year_ ) three months before Avonlea's fall. And though once he goes she will never be able to quite remember the sound of his voice or the shape of his features, couldn't tell you the shade of his hair or the color of his eyes if her life depended on it, everything else stays with her, imprinted on her memory in clear, stark relief, like she might somehow find him in the negative space. So if she closed her eyes she could still describe the way the early autumn sun had just started to set turning the sky bloody and casting the land in shadows. Could tell you about the smoke from the scorched earth that clings to her hair and clothes; the sweat and grime that's formed a thin film on her skin; the moans of the wounded in the distance . . .

It's a strange backdrop for the beginning of a love story she supposes.

( _And it is a love story when Belle tells it. She's uncompromising on that point_.)

But this is the way it begins all the same.

He's perched on one of the stone outcroppings that line the bank of the stream when she comes down to fetch more water for the soldiers. And the funny thing is she would almost swear he wasn't there when she put the bucket in, but there's no mistaking the reflection that appears just behind her own as she pulls it back out.

Startled, Belle loses her balance and goes tumbling backwards.

The bucket of water goes with her.

Her dignity isn't far behind.

There's a soft quiet sound that might be laughter ( _or just rustling leaves_ ). And Belle props herself up on her elbows to pin him with a glare, tongue already forming a quick retort. But the face that meets hers is nothing more than a picture of servile concern.

Still there's something in his eyes, a suggestion of dark amusement swimming just beneath the surface of his seeming subservience that strikes her as wrong, causes her initial rush of embarrassment to give way to a piercing lance of panic. Because there aren't many reasons to find men traveling alone on the fringes of a war-zone ( _brigand, mercenary, deserter all flit through her mind_ ), and none of them bode well for her.

Blindly she fumbles for the handle of the bucket, wishing it were a knife.

Then again swing wide and hard . . .

"Ach, please! I-" he holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender, "I mean you no harm, milady. Please-"

The broad, mud-thick Boderlands accent hits her ears and makes her blink in surprise. She would have expected something sharper, more . . . But that's ridiculous, she can see it now – the rough gray homespun of his cloak, the calloused dirt-smudged hands he holds up in plea. Suddenly he's smaller, less threatening and Belle can't imagine what she'd been so scared of.

Foolish of her –

Something tickles at the edge of her mind, a shadow dancing in the peripheral vision of her consciousness. But when she tries to examine it more closely, look at it head on, it's disappeared, slipped through her fingers like smoke.

For a moment she thinks she should chase it, but before she can he shifts, the movement catching her eye and pulling her attention.

All at once, she's painfully aware of the fact she's still sprawled out on the ground, soaking wet and mud-splattered; skirts rucked-up, arms and legs akimbo; maidenly modesty and gentle graces nowhere to be seen.

Fairies help her, she must be a sight.

Flushing in embarrassment, Belle stands and begins to swipe at the patches of dirt in an effort to regain some semblance of dignity. It's a fruitless quest. All she manages to accomplish is to turn her apron into a ghoulish canvas of mud smears and blood splatters.

With a sigh of frustration, she gives the whole project up for a lost cause.

"You know this is the moment when a gentleman would apologize for startling me and tell me I look radiantly beautiful."

"Sorry milady. I'm not much of a gentleman." He says it quietly with an apologetic self-consciousness that's almost painful to witness. But there's something . . . a flash of emotion too quick for her to catch skittering across his face, a discordant note in his voice that makes her feel like she's hearing two men—one modest and one mocking—saying the same thing, both utterly sincere in their meaning.

Against all reason and sense, it's the mocking one Belle hears and she laughs. It's a hysterical little laugh, a small hiccup of gallows humor, born more of relief and exhaustion than any real amusement, but it's a laugh all the same.

With the same power to wound.

He scowls turning in on himself, and to her horror Belle realizes he thinks she's laughing at him.

"Oh, no. No, it was a quip. I wasn't serious. I was- Well _I_ was embarrassed and trying to cover it." Swiping a bedraggled lock of hair out of her eyes, she glances down at herself with a rueful smile. "Truthfully, I doubt any man, gentleman or not, would be able to tell me with a straight face that I look even a little bit beautiful right now."

Her stranger doesn't say anything, but when she lifts her eyes he's looking at her in a way makes her breath catch and her heart stop. It's too bold, too brazen and yet strangely shy all at once. It's like nothing she's ever seen on a man's face before- And for second she almost catches a glimpse of something 'other' in the cast of his features and for a second she would swear he's going to prove her wrong.

Somewhere in the distance a man screams in pain.

And the moment shatters.

Belle shakes it off and turns to kneel beside the stream once again, ignoring the reflection that appears next to hers. And if her hands shake just a little, well the scream startled her. The moment meant nothing. It's already forgotten.

But it's not. It won't be. The shards it leaves behind will lodge beneath her skin, tender and sharp and painful. Long after he's gone, after he's splintered in her memory beyond recognition, she will still feel him there, cutting into her. And some nights she will lie in bed and press at the ragged fragments until it hurts, until she aches at the sensation.

And one night, a month from now, she will look over at Gaston and know he will never make her feel _anything_ , whether it be love or loathing, that acutely and for the first time her self-imposed prison will chafe.

For now though, she draws water, catches her breath, and tries to talk of nothing.

"You're a long way from the Borderlands."

The comment is met with a long silence, and if she couldn't still see his reflection in the water, she'd imagine he'd disappeared on her. Sitting back on her haunches, she glances over her shoulder. "You are from the Borderlands, aren't you? Your accent-"

Licking his lips, he nods slowly as if waking from a dream. "Aye. I was. Once."

Belle flinches at his use of the past-tense. Clumsy. That was so clumsy of her. No one's from the Borderlands any more. Not for going on two years now.

"I'm sorry, that was-" But she can't quite find the right words to apologize for her careless misstep. Winds up lifting the ladle in offering instead. "Would you like some? I know it's not much, but-"

Narrowing his eyes, he cocks his head as if evaluating the sincerity of the offer.

"Don't you need it, for-?" He gestures vaguely up the embankment towards the soldier's camp.

"I can always draw more. It's not as hard as I make it look, truly."

Another long considering look, and then with a curt nod of acceptance, he draws his staff towards him and leverages himself to standing. The awkward labored movement catches her by surprise and a tiny 'Oh!' of pity drops from her lips before she can stop it.

What happens next occurs in a kind of horrid slow motion. At her exclamation, he casts a dark glare in her direction, and with the lapse in concentration seems to momentarily forget his own infirmity, landing hard on his bad leg.

At his hiss of pain, Belle takes an urgent half-step forward, but it's the wrong move. He throws a hand out to ward her off, his grimace of pain contorting into an ugly mocking smile. "Not a pretty sight is it, milady? What your war leaves behind ?"

"I've seen worse," she murmurs, refusing to be baited. Bringing the ladle over to him she adds, "And it's not my war."

"No, of course not. But let's agree it's a little more yours than mine."

He's hardly the first man to be made bitter and vicious by pain that she's encountered, but that doesn't stop the accusation from landing across her cheek like a slap.

She's tossed the water in his face before she knows what she's doing.

For a tense moment all they can seem to do is stare at each other, and it feels as if they are perched on a knife's point and it skitters through her mind that perhaps she had been right to fear him in the first place. But just as quickly as the thought forms it's dispelled, because in the next breath the shock of it seems to make him register what he just said, how many boundaries of propriety he's crossed ( _no peasant talks to a woman of station this way no matter how warranted_ ), and he seems to almost collapse in on himself, eyes widening in horror as he scrambles to apologize. "I'm sorry milady. I shouldnae have said that. That was-"

"True." Belle cuts him off, turning away. "It was ugly and cruel and absolutely uncalled for when I was just trying to be kind. But that doesn't make it untrue."

The words come out colder than she intends, but she can't help it. It's as if the sight of him abasing himself in apology has robbed her of her anger only to find she has nothing left to replace it, no compassion or kindness or strength to give him. And all she feels is empty and used up and so very, very tired.

Suddenly the weight of everything is just too much, the lives and blood and the harvests they've lost. The children who will die this winter from lack of food and the men who will die when the spring thaw comes and the ogres renew their attacks. And she sinks down onto the rocks, biting her lip bloody in effort to stifle a sob.

Gods, how she _hates_ this war. So much death and so much loss and the people keep looking to her father for an answer, and she knows he doesn't have one and she knows the lack is killing him. They have a year on the outside before all of her father's lands fall. And then what will become of them? Of any of them?

There's a tap of wood on stone and she looks up to find him standing in front her, leaning hard on his staff, half-full ladle extended in awkward apology. But Belle can't seem to make her hand reach out to take it, finds herself short on forgiveness along with everything else. Still when he starts to back away, she shifts over offering him a space beside her on the rock in silent invitation. Because it's obvious his leg is hurting him and she may not have much forgiveness in her, but she's long ago lost her taste for retribution.

After a long moment of indecision, he takes it, but his body remains tense and wary as if he thinks it might be a trick, half-expects to be beaten for his impertinence.

He's such a strange contradiction. Speaking far too boldly one minute and cowering the next. Everything about him is grey and small and unassuming, doing his best to avoid notice, and yet when she looks at him Belle finds it almost impossible to tear her gaze away.

Shifting uncomfortably under her scrutiny, he tries again for apology. "Dinnae mean-"

Belle shakes her head, unwilling to give him the lie. "You did. You meant it."

He closes his eyes and swallows, and when he finally speaks his voice is a harsh, raw whisper. "Milady, I dinnae know what you want me to say."

"I could say the same thing about you." She lays two significant fingers on the staff that now rests between them. "I don't know what you want me to say to make this better."

He doesn't respond and Belle sighs. She knows she's not really being fair to him. It's a cruel kind of game she's seen others of her class engage in with a peasant who's angered them. Verbally sparring, lording their education and position over the other to beat them back down into place. But the need to say something to someone is suddenly overwhelming, and he's here and he opened this wound. He can at least do her the courtesy of letting her bleed on him.

"I was twenty when the Ogres came. I can still remember the rider coming in from the Borderlands. His horse died as he dismounted, right there in our courtyard, and I remember being horrified that he'd ridden the animal so hard."

Her stranger emits a sharp, stifled huff of mirthless laughter, and Belle lets her mouth curve in a rueful smile of acknowledgment. "I know. It sounds . . . incredibly naïve now, even as I'm saying it. Not much of a first casualty. But it wasn't the last I saw."

She doesn't continue immediately. Instead digs self-consciously at a knot on his staff with her thumbnail. Belle doesn't what she was expecting, but she can't deny she was expecting something, some offer of his experiences to match her own, something other than this scornful, bitter silence.

But nothing else comes.

"Maybe it means nothing to you. Maybe you don't believe it. But I am sorry for whatever you lost, and if you think my family should be blamed for part of that, for not protecting you better maybe that's fair. But you should know that my father would give anything to save his people and so would I."

 _That_ gets his attention. Slowly he lifts his head to look at her, his eyes hard and piercing, and when he speaks something's different. Consonants sharper, voice edged and careful. "You shouldn't say something like that if you don't mean it, milady. You never know who might hear."

And now he has hers. Suddenly Belle can remember every story she's ever heard about helpful strangers and dangerous beggars and she doesn't even care which this man might be. Leaning forward her heart beating faster, she challenges, "And if I do mean it?"

He shakes his head. "You don't. You shouldn't. Anything- Anything can be a very steep price."

Belle can't help herself. She laughs, sour and derisive. "You think I don't know that?" Reaching out blindly, she grasps his hand. "What is it you need? My life? Believe me if I thought my dying would accomplish something other than one more body, I would have waded into the fray long ago."

And she knows how she sounds, how she looks – a bedraggled creature, half-mad with desperation, begging for assistance from a stranger who likely has no more magic than she – so the shock on his face is hardly a surprise.

After all it's probably not every day noblewomen beg him to do the impossible.

For a long moment his eyes scour her face as if looking for the lie, searching for the doubt, the regret. Belle just holds his gaze, steady and resolute.

"You mean that, don't you?"

"I do."

His mouth twitches in a pained half-smile. "There are worse things than death."

"I know."

He closes his eyes at that, and there seems to be a kind of war going on inside him.

"Please."

Flinching, he withdraws his hand. "I'm sorry milady. I shouldnae have- I cannae help you."

Of course he can't. It's obvious now. He's just a man and a lame one at that. Barely able to defend himself. Whatever she'd thought she'd seen had been nothing more than her desperation getting the better of her. She above all people should know how easily a lie becomes a legend.

Besides, magic doesn't come to the Frontlands anymore, not for almost a century. Not since the Dark One slipped his leash and stole the Duke's children from their beds. Not since the clerics came.

But hope, even the possibility of hope . . . is difficult to relinquish once it's been grasped.

"You know someone who can, though," she presses, "When you said you never know who might be listening. You were talking about someone specific. Who?"

"You willnae like the price."

"I don't have to like it to be willing to pay."

"Are you so very eager to throw yourself off a cliff?" he snarls.

"No. Not eager. I'd much rather stand at the edge and throw the Ogres over. But-" she shrugs, "Desperate times."

That seems to give him pause.

"Aye." He touches his fingers to a small notch on his staff. "Desperate times."

* * *

Belle never tells anyone about her stranger, about the name he whispered in her ear just as the last ray of light was swallowed by shadows or the fact she could no more remember how he left than the way he came.

Her father is righteously horrified when she returns from the soldier's camp with Rumplestiltskin's name on her lips. There are apparently some lines he is not yet willing to cross.

Three months later when moral absolutes have been reduced to dust, it is Belle who hands him the quill and parchment. Watches as he writes promises of gold and holds her tongue.

The Dark One's help will not be bought so cheaply, her stranger warned her as much, but her father doesn't need to know that.

"There," her father whispers with a sigh as he presses his seal into the wax, "I have offered him all I have. Let us hope it is enough."

Heart clenching at the unconscious truth he's just uttered, Belle brushes a kiss to his temple, closes her eyes and doesn't say anything.

Desperate times.


End file.
